dpEven when she was winning, something didn’t feel right.
In March 2025, Charleston’s Emma Navarro won the WTA Tour’s Merida Open in Mexico, becoming only the fifth player in this century to win a final set 6-0, 6-0.
It was her second career singles title, and she didn’t drop a set during the entire tournament. Her ranking on the WTA Tour rose to a career-high No. 8.
It was one of the highlights of the tennis life of the Ashley Hall graduate, who was the Post and Courier All-Lowcountry high school player of the year and an NCAA champion at Virginia before turning pro in June of 2022.
But looking back now, it’s clear something was amiss.
“It was a bit convoluted, I guess,” the 25-year-old Navarro said after a recent tournament. “Because I felt proud of winning a title, but I just didn’t feel great about where I was with the level of play. How I felt physically and mentally, I was just not in a great place.”
That feeling persisted over the next year, impacting her results on the court and finally leading to a difficult decision this spring — to skip her hometown tournament, the Credit One Charleston Open on Daniel Island.
It’s a place she loves to play, in a tournament owned by her father, Charleston businessman and philanthropist Ben Navarro.
“Skipping Charleston was definitely not an easy decision,” she said last week from London, where she is preparing to play at Wimbledon. “It’s one of my favorite tournaments of the year, and I see it as an opportunity to give back to the Charleston tennis community.
“So that was a tough decision to make. But I knew it was the right one, and it makes me looking forward to next year even more.”
Rise to stardom
Navarro’s first years on the pro tour were a case study in upward mobility. After winning an NCAA title as a freshman in 2021, she turned pro after her sophomore season and began a quick rise to the top 10.
By the end of 2023, she was ranked No. 32. In 2024, she won her first career title, was voted the WTA Tour’s most improved player, advanced to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the semis at the U.S. Open, and rose to No. 8 in the world.
